NEW YORK: Shares of Tesla fell on Thursday following a report the electric car company and electronics giant Panasonic are suspending plans to expand a battery plant due to weak demand for the vehicles.Tesla and Panasonic froze a plan to boost capacity of the Gigafactory 1 battery factory in the US state of Nevada"as concerns mount on Wall Street about weakening demand at Elon Musk's car company," Nikkei Asian Review reported.
Japan-based Panasonic had been seen pumping as much as US$1.4 billion into the plan to boost Nevada production by around 50 per cent. "Most importantly, contrary to what is implied in this report, our demand for cells continues to outpace supply. It remains the fundamental constraint on Tesla vehicle and Powerwall/Powerpack production."Nikkei also reported that Panasonic will suspend planned investment at Tesla's new Shanghai plant and will instead provide technical support to the project.